1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to controlling communications. In particular, the invention relates to a system, method, and program for controlling the communication frequency.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, virtual worlds have been developed not only for personal pleasure purposes such as games but also for business purposes and have been used by a number of users. In practice, a virtual world is created by clients that are operated by users and a server for collecting and managing various types of information. If a user operates a client, an influence that the operation has had on the virtual world is transmitted as data to the server. On the other hand, if the server transmits data to a client, the transmitted data is related to only the user of the client. According to this mechanism, an image is displayed on the screen of the client in such a manner that the image is updated in real time, as if to show the sight of a character serving as an avatar of the user.
For further background on technology for controlling a virtual world, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-50154.
However, if a great number of clients communicate with a small number of servers simultaneously, an enormous amount of data may need to be communicated. This may cause a delay in data update, which may impair the real-time nature of the virtual world. For example, even if a second character staying within sight of a first character is moved, information on the movement is not immediately transmitted from a second client to a first client for operating the first character. As a result, there occurs a delay before the second character is moved in an image indicative of the sight of the first character.